North Adams Public Works Buildings in Bad Shape
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Dirty, dank, deteriorating, demoralizing.
That pretty much sums up the conditions for the city's Department of Public Works employees.
"The working conditions for our public services people are not good," said Mayor Richard Alcombright. "It's dark, it's dirty, in some cases, I would almost call it unsafe ...
"We wouldn't put our teachers in that environment, we wouldn't put our City Hall workers in that environment."
The City Council toured the several facilities used by highway, cemetery and water department workers on Monday night by Mayor Richard Alcombright and Public Services Commissioner Timothy Lescarbeau.
The administration is pushing for approval to buy a former manufacturing plant on Hodges Cross Road that would accommodate all the departments and their equipment — all inside. The council, on Monday, postponed a decision on that purchase.
The oldest of the buildings dates back to the 1880s but even the newest is problematic from a situational standpoint — it's located right in the middle of what will be the spray park in the revamped Noel Field Complex.
The Parks & Recreation Building may be newer but it's being used only because Lescarbeau had the old one that was behind the Goodwill store on State Street razed as soon as he was hired.
"On my first week on the job I made everybody move out of there. I condemned it," he said, adding that the building was in such poor condition "you could walk through the wall."
Still, the Parks & Rec building has water issues and can't hold all department's equipment. That was a litany repeated throughout the tour: water and space.
The Cemetery Department is two buildings tucked away behind a hill at Southview. The main structure with the office is the oldest and in the worst condition. Lescarbeau thought it may date to the old City Infirmary, the successor to the Poor Farm, that had been demolished back in the 1960s as the cemetery expanded.
There are obvious rot and foundation issues; the office is decrepit and the second floor of the barn structure is so bad he didn't want anyone up there for safety reasons. It's difficult to imagine anyone wanting to work in the dark, leaky, smelly building.
"When it rains, the water comes in through and puddles up in here," Lescarbeau said. "It costs more to heat this building in the winter time than it does to heat the whole City Yard."
Its secluded location makes it a target for break-ins and the security system shorts out when it rains.
The salt shed on Ashland Street is nearing collapse, he said, pointing to repairs made to the walls. And the hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment rusting out in the rain.
The city's $80,000 asphalt recycler and $40,000 asphalt hot box have no home — they're sitting outside the salt shed with all the plows and sanders ($12,000 a pop) because there's no place to store them.
Down the road, the City Yard stands as probably the best example of the ravages of time. The brick Knowles Pump Works, built in 1884 for the city's Fire District, has been added onto to serve as storage, workshops, offices and break room. Some rooms combine all of the above.
The Water Department is a cluttered workshop, office and garage; other offices are used to store chemicals and mechanical fluids. Tires are piled in a room at the end of a long hallway — then have to be rolled and through the breakroom and across the yard.
"There's a lot of stuff here," said Lescarbeau as councilors tried to find a place to stand in the Water Department. "There's just not enough room. Granted a lot of it could be cleaned up and organized. I've thrown several tractor trailers full of stuff away since I've been here."
Space is also tight in the mechanical garage, built in the 1930s. Equipment, tools and supplies are jam-packed into a building that can no longer serve its purpose for many of the Highway Department vehicles. They're just too big to fit into the small bays.
How do they change the tires on the big trucks? Brute force, says Lescarbeau, and outside.
The newest building, constructed in the 1970s in place of a number of rickety wooden buildings that were demolished, is also showing its age. The steel shell isn't high enough to lift the big trucks to work under them, the roof is leaking and the trusses are weakening.
"This roof leaks in a whole bunch of places, we've patched it," Lescarbeau said, pointing to an "interior" roof built over the electrical panel to keep it dry. "I won't send anybody up there because it's so paper thin now somebody could fall through."
The aged brick buildings are falling apart on the inside and the outside. An emergency generator, purchased with grant funds, is stored outside Wire & Alarm, another undersized and old brick building. Lescarbeau said equipment was stored in the Windsor Mill but can't be accessed by truck. Everything has to be carried out by hand.
None of the interiors are conducive to morale.
It doesn't seem as though the situation at the City Yard has changed much in the past 50 years. A reporter with the North Adams Transcript wrote a scathing editorial back in 1962, calling the Yard "an abomination" and a "slum."
"The buildings are jammed in together around the perimeter of the Yard, which feeds directly and dangerously onto Ashland Street," Edwin Matesky wrote. "Only one of the buildings, a concrete and brick garage built close to 30 years ago [and still standing], is any good. The others are worthless and present a crazy patchwork quilt effect of spot repair over the years."
Even then, space was at a premium and Public Works had to rent out room in the old Boston & Maine roundhouse. Matesky excoriated the city for allowing the Yard "to rot these many years to its present state of decrepitude."
"If you don't believe it, go see for yourself," he said.
Tags: city yard, DPW, public services,
